My Predictions for Who Will Die in Game of Thrones

I normally write about security, technology, and how they interact with humans, but I’m making an exception here for a prediction on Game of Thrones.

I read a book recently called Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, and it talked about professional predictors of complex events. They get rated on how accurate they are, how much confidence they put into their predictions, and how much they miss by.

This text will not be modified after April 19th, 2019 other than what’s indicated in the notes below.

So I simply want to know how much I’ll miss by for specific predictions on how the story will unfold.

Characters

Basically, imagine the most heroic ends possible—with most people dying and a few random and tragic deaths—and that’s what we’re going to get.

Arya will probably live because she becomes part of the mystery and danger of the world, and Tyrion probably lives because he becomes the tragic hero that carries forth wisdom and kindness going forward.

Apr 19, 2019 — Update from Andrew.

Apr 21, 2019 (14:40 PST) — Episode 2 comes on in a few hours, and while speaking with Andrew yesterday I realized that the ultimate ending would have an epilogue like Harry Potter—where you have them as adults, sending off their kids to Hogwartz. And you see everyone together. So that being said, here are some elements I think we could see in a similar GoT epilogue.

Jon and Daenerys are dead.

We see Sansa up in Winterfell, and the King is coming to visit.

It’s Tyrion (maybe he’s Targaryan afterall)

Arya shows up, and meets Sansa’s daughter, who is tomboyish like her, and Arya teaches her how to shoot a bow in the same place as Season 1.

Sam shows up and he’s super high rank at the Citadel (because he helped kill the Knight King), and he has a family with many kids.

As things pan out, you see there are baby dragons (or dragon eggs?)

Another option is Gendry is King and Arya is queen.

Either way, the vibe is basically peacetime, with the next generation growing up and honoring the sacrifices that were made to make the scene possible. Likely location: Winterfell—since that was the first big scene in Season 1.

There’s also another theory that Daenerys gets seduced by the Knight King, and becomes evil. And who has to kill her? Jon.

In that line, Jon would probably live and be seen in the epilogue, because then he’s the tragic survivor who lost his only two loves.

Notes

Hat tip to Andrew Ringlein, who I’ve talked to dozens of times about this exact topic over the last 8 years or so. He’s read many other books by George R.R. Martin and believes that he has a predictable pattern of heroic story arcs. So I’m sure he’s influenced my thinking on this, but I think we disagree on a number of these outcomes.